


The Next Time

by Silex



Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Flash Fic, Gen, Horror, SCP-1733 - Freeform, Time Loop, Trapped, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 07:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21240560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: It was supposed to be an awesome day for Brian, his dad taking him and his little sister to see the opening game of the season. And the game was fun at first, but then it got weird. Really, really weird, and then everything went bad.





	The Next Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).

“It’s going to be alright,” dad reassured, looking up at the lights.

Brian nodded, trying to be brave this time. His little sister, Tiffany, was crying, which meant that he couldn’t.

Tiffany sniffled and buried her face against dad’s side. They’d made it to safety faster than ever, not that it mattered with how different things were each time. Previously safe routs became dangerous as more and more people got crazy and desperate, doing stranger and stranger things.

It wasn’t just the bunch of adults who kept burning things and trying to grab kids away from their families, or the adults in the place blocked off from sight. Over there Brian had seen two ladies doing _something_ that dad had made him look away from.

“Things are different this time so maybe something will happen.”

That’s what a lot of the adults were hoping for, but as far as Brian could tell things were already really different.

The air turning red was hardly different compared to everything else.

It wasn’t the lights, they were the same cold yellow that made his eyes hurt if he looked at them for too long.

The smell had gotten stronger too, maybe.

It was hard to tell because this time Brian thought that it might have been there from the start rather than showing up after people started to do bad things. It reminded him of when his mom would let him help her make meatballs, the weird egg and meat smell. Not blood like when the dog caught a woodchuck and thought it was a toy, or when the people who called themselves the Faithkeepers brought LeBron James back into the arena.

Dad had made him look away immediately when that happened, told him to cover his ears and keep his eyes closed, before wrapping Tiffany up in his jacket so she couldn’t see at all.

None of that stopped the smell, blood, like when the man they’d been sitting next to early on started arguing with his girlfriend and hit her.

Everyone was yelling all the time now, but Brian tried to be brave.

Maybe dad was right, maybe this time would be the last time and the doors would open up so everyone could go home.

Thinking of making meatballs with mom made him think about how worried she had to be. How long had they been trapped? The way things kept repeating made it hard to tell.

“We’re half way there,” dad said, checking his phone, because the timer on the wall had been smashed right away this time.

“I wanna go home,” Tiffany whined.

“We all do Tiff,” dad reassured and Brian had to turn away.

Seeing his sister cry made him mad because he felt like crying too, but he couldn’t because he had to be brave.

An old lady sitting nearby offered him a piece of candy and despite warnings against taking candy from strangers he accepted. If the candy was bad it wouldn’t matter because the people he’d seen smashed and bloody came back each time.

The lady in the Faithkeepers that got pushed down when she tried to grab a little boy was back yelling at them, saying that they were to blame for by not being willing. She was back, even though Brian had seen her bleeding on the floor.

There were screams coming from the place blocked off by the curtains that dad and some of the other adults had set up. Screams had come from there before, but these were a different kind.

A man fell out, covered in blood and Brian got a look at what was going on behind the curtains before dad yelled at him to look away. It was too late, even if the way the air had gone all red meant that it was hard to tell exactly what he was seeing, he still saw it.

It was like the scary movie he’d seen part of last October without letting his parents know.

It had given him nightmares for months because his parents caught him and made him stop watching before he got to the end and never saw if the girl got away from the monsters.

This was just like that, not knowing the ending and if they’d get away because every time he thought it would end…

“Just five more minutes,” dad said, grabbing him in a too tight hug.

Maybe this time they wouldn’t end up back in their seats when it was over, maybe they’d still be sitting here. The doors might open, someone might find a way out for real.

There was a lot that could happen.

_One-Mississippi_

_Two-Mississippi_

_Three-Mississippi_

Brian started counting the seconds. Five minutes was a lot to count and he wasn’t sure how far into it he’d started, but counting gave him something to do other than wonder.

If he could count the seconds at least he knew something.

_Fifty-nine-Mississippi_

_Sixty-Mississippi_

He stopped. That was a minute.

Brian wasn’t sure if counting made it feel longer or shorter, but he started the next minute anyway.

Four more minutes to go.

_One-Mississippi_

_Two-Mississippi_

The Faithkeepers were doing something. He’d heard their voices enough to recognize them.

“Keep your sister safe,” dad shoved Tiffany into his arms and she grabbed onto him so hard it hurt, “I’ll be right back with you.”

He looked and wished that he hadn’t.

Some of the Faithkeepers had torn down the rest of the curtains, others were back yelling at the kids and parents again.

It had made him lose count, daddy rushing off like that to get between a Faithkeeper man and a woman and a teenager who must have been her son.

Brian went back to counting.

_Forty-seven-Mississippi_

_Forty-eight-Mississippi_

_Forty-nine-Mississippi_

They were back in their seats except the air was even darker now, not red, but blood black and the smell was stronger.

Egg and meat and something else.

**Author's Note:**

> Time loops and that sort of thing terrify me and the word count on this thing had a go at driving me to madness because the idea only came to me when I was way too far in.


End file.
